Is your head still spinning from the smackdown of new details Steve Jobs and the Apple crew just slammed you with? Apple’s iCloud page just went live so you can get all the details on the new software that Apple is bringing to you for free later this fall. Of course, Cult of Mac will be posting all new material throughout the day breaking down iCloud and it’s features, so don’t stray too far.
Lion represents something of a landmark in the history of operating systems, for many reasons.
Hooray! One More Thing! And all is not lost: Apple’s giving us all Cloud Storage lockers! It’s called iTunes Match, and it’s the much ballyhooed scan-and-match functionality that Apple’s been working on.
“iTunes in the cloud,” Steve Jobs says. ” As you recall, it’s just for the music you purchased in the iTunes store. But you may have some that you ripped yourself. And there’s three ways you can deal with that.”
“One, you can sync your devices over Wi-Fi or cable, and then you can rely on iCloud. Or, if it’s just a few songs you love, you can buy them on iTunes. But we’re offering a third way, and we call it iTunes Match.”
iTunes will now scan your music collection and match it with the 18 million songs Apple has in the iTunes music store. It takes just minutes to do, and matches the stuff you’ve ripped and mirrors them in the cloud at 256kbps AAC with DRM free.
It’s affordable, too! It costs just $24.99 per year. For everything, no maximum storage. This is what Apple built its North Carolina data super center for.
Wow. That blew Amazon Cloud and Google Music out of the water. It pays to sign the contracts.
Now Steve Jobs is spelling out the details of how you get iCloud and what it’ll cost.
Buy a new iOS Device and you get 5GB of storage free, with apps and books not counting. That’s just for documents and mail.
iCloud will be turned on by default.
iCloud will debut in iOS 5 proper, with a Dev Preview released today, but iTunes in the Cloud will show up in iOS 4.3 today as a beta.
But wait! Steve Jobs has one more thing to announce… and it’s cloud storage! Hooray!
Steve Jobs is back on stage now, to unveil the last part of iCloud that makes it truly magical. We all know what to expect here, but Steve Jobs spells it out: “iTunes in the cloud.”
“You know, it’s the same old story. I buy something on my iPhone, and it’s not on my other devices. I grab my iPod and it ain’t there,” says Jobs.
They’re aiming to change that with iCloud. For songs you’ve already bought — like apps, or iBooks — there’s now a purchased button to allow you to easily re-
download to your device, no additional charge.
Buy a new track? It automatically pushes to all of your device. Steve says this is an industry first.
It all happens at 256K AAC, and supports up to 10 devices for free.
So this is what iCloud is. It isn’t streaming music at all. It just syncs any iTunes purchased track automatically across 10 iOS devices. Wow. That is outrageously disappointing. Does Steve have something up his sleeve still though?
First up? Documents syncing with iCloud.
If you create a Pages document, it uploads and store in the cloud, then pushes live to all the devices you can run Pages on. That feature is live in Pages, Numbers and Keynote… it’s iWork grown up.
It’s a bit disappointing, in that you still need a native app to access all your documents. There also doesn’t appear to be any true cloud editing.
It’s all part of Apple’s attempt to get rid of the file system. As such, Apple’s releasing iCloud storage APIs, so any app can use them. It even works on Macs and PCs!
It works the same for Photos. “I take photos on any device, puts them in the camera roll, and then it’s uploaded to the cloud and downloaded to all of my devices, just waiting for me when I get home. In addition, I can import photos,” says Steve.
There’s nothing new to learn. You just access your Photo Stream by punching a button in Camera or Photos.app. On the Mac, it’s built into iPhoto. On the PC, it’s built into the Pictures folder. It even works on the Apple TV! The only problem is they only last for thirty days, which I don’t quite get.
Seems like we know what the North Carolina data facility was built for, don’t you think?
iCloud doesn’t stop at the free core apps, though. It’s getting App Store integration.
You can now see your purchase history on all devices, and redownload an app easily by just tapping it. No longer is there any confusion about which app you own and which you don;t.
iBooks does the same thing, as does music and video. When you buy anything new, it pushes down to all of your devices automatically.
With iBooks, it’ll even store bookmarks and notes across devices. This is Apple’s answer to Kindle’s Whispersync.
Even better? iCloud automatically backs up most of the data on your device to the cloud once a day, including purchased content, camera roll, device settings and app data.
But Steve Jobs promises that as impressive as this all is, it’s the last three features that are amazing.
Here’s how iCloud will work, according to Jobs:
“Now, if I get something on my iPhone, it’s sent to the cloud immediately, and they’re pushed down to my devices automatically. And now everything is in sync without having to think about it. I don’t have to be near my Mac or PC.”
“Some people think the cloud is just a hard disk in the sky. You transfer back and forth. We think it’s way more than that. We call it iCloud. It stores your content in the cloud, and automatically pushes it to your devices.”
It’s completely integrated with apps, and there’s nothing new to learn. It all just works, no iTunes required.
But why should we believe Apple? “After all, they’re the ones that brought me MobileMe,” Steve Jobs jokes. He’s clearly still pissed about that.
“It wasn’t our finest hour, but we learned a lot. We’ve written Contacts, Calendar and Mail from the ground up to be iCloud apps.” All the changes are stored in the cloud and pushed to your devices.
Best of all, these three core apps are now free… with no ads.
Steve Jobs has come back onstage to talk about iCloud.
I get to talk about iCloud. We’ve been working on this for some time. About 10 years ago, we had one of our most important insights. We thought the PC would be the hub for your digital life. Where you put your photos, your video, your music,” says Jobs.
“You were going to acquire it, and sync it to the Mac, and everything would work fine. And it did… but it’s broken down in the last few years.”
“Why? Because all your devices have photos, have video, have music. If I buy something on my phone, I have to sync it to get a song I bought. Then I have to sync that to other devices, and if I have photos, it’s the same thing… and keeping these devices in sync is driving us crazy!”
“We’ve got a solution for this problem. We’re going to demote the PC and the mac to just be a device. We’re going to move your hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud.”
Wow. I had no idea they were going to phrase iCloud as an invalidation of the PC as a center of your computing life, but it makes sense, given where Apple’s business is going. Can’t wait to see the details.
Uh, hey, see that right at the bottom of the slide showing what’s new in iOS 5? WiFi Syncing to iTunes! That’s one I was praying for, but didn’t actually think we’d see coming.
Others include new multitouch gestures and universal Dictionary support.
Apple’s just shown us ten new features of iOS 5. There’s 190 left. Unbelievable.
Devices iOS 5 will supprt are iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, iPad and iPad 2, iPod Touch 3rd Gen and Fourth Gen.
It’s coming this fall… right in time for the iPhone 5.
Oh, shit. As was rumored earlier today, Apple just announced what could be the death blow to Blackberry: iMessage, a way to securely message between iDevices.
“Our customers have been asking us for a new messaging solution. We’re launching a service that works for all iOS 5 customers. We call it iMessage. It supports iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch,” says Scott Forstall.
You can use it to send text, photos, videos or contacts, even group messages.
We’ve added delivery receipts, and optional read receipts. Typing notifications, so you can see if someone is typing. Pushed to all of your devices, so you can pick up where you left off,” explains Forstall.
Even better, it happens on 3G and WiFi.
This is a serious wake up call to RIM. Their last great advantage just flew out the window: BlackBerry Messaging is unique no longer. Time to evolve or die.
We’re living in the post PC world, according to Steve Jobs, so why do you still need a computer to use your iPad or iPhone?
No longer: iOS 5 is going PC Free. Now, instead of starting up an iOS device and saying to connect to iTunes, you get a Welcome Screen.
And guess what? You know what else you get now? Wireless updates over the air, which Apple is calling Delta Updates.
This is great news for most, but I’m guessing this is going to be a huge fly in the ointment for jailbreakers.
Yes! I’ve been waiting for this forever. Apple’s given the iPad a portrait mode keyboard perfect for thumb typers! This is just like Microsoft demoed in Windows 8 last week!
“Mail is one of the most used applications. We’re making it even better. We’re adding rich text formatting, adding indentations, you can drag addresses, you can flag and unflag, and you can search the entire contents of your messages,” says Scott Forstall.
Meet the new Mail.app. And it’ll have hot new features for enterprise customers, with support for S/MIME and certificate encryption.
The new Mail.app reveals that Dictionary integration has come to all of iOS.
The iPhone is already almost the most popular camera on Flickr. Apple wants to make it even easier to take photos with an iPhone: coming soon, you’ll have a lock screen shortcut for taking photos in iOS 5.
What’s cool about this is that even if you have a passcode set, you’ll go right to the camera. You can’t see anything else… and you can use the volume up button to take a photo…” said Fortsall to huge cheers.
This is my favorite iOS 5 addition today short of the new notifications.
In addition, Apple’s adding some abilities to easily edit photos on the iPhone, including cropping, red eye reduction, quick enhance and more.
The next two additions to iOS 5: Safari and Reminders.
Safari on the iPad has become more like the desktop version, with tab support.
Reader is coming to IOS, where it belonged all along. As well, Apple’s Reading List basically brings Instapaper and Read It Later to iOS as a default feature. You can even tweet stories on your reading list, complete with autocompletes for @mentions.
Reminders is a way to keep track of to do lists and things to be accomplished. You can create lists of things and associate dates with the reminders, as well as locations.
Reminders will sync with calDAV and also iCal.
Next big feature? Twitter integration, as rumored. And it goes way beyond photos.
On the Setting screen, you can now enter your Twitter username and password. Now, if you want to share a photo through Twitter, you just tap the Tweet button.
You can also Tweet articles from Safari, videos from YouTube app, directions and business from Maps and even contacts.
This is less dramatic than I expected Twitter integration to be: I expected Apple to go head to head with Foursquare. Nice, but trivial.
Next big feature for iOS 5? Newsstand. Think of it as iBookstore for periodicals.
“We’ve now created a single place in the App Store that combines these newspapers and magazines,” says Forstall.
Unlike in-app subscriptions. Newsstand is a direct line between magazines and newspapers to your iOS device.
If a new issue comes out of a newspaper while you’re sleeping, when you wake up, that new newspaper is already there for you to read it. You can even read it offline.
Looks like you no longer have to download each magazine’s app. Apple’s brought them all together in one place for you now. Will Apple save periodical publishing?
And here comes iOS 5, “an incredible leap for developers and customers alike,” says Scott Forstall.
“For devs, more than 1500 APIs and tools. Users get more than 200 new features.”
Apple wants to highlight ten features today. First up, though, is the biggie we’ve heard rumored: notifications.
iOS 5 is getting revamped notifications support with annoying pop ups and push notifications. They serve 100 billion push notifications a year.
The new method of dealing with notifications is called Notification Center. You can access your notifications anywhere, without interruption, by swiping your finger down from the top of the display. This is a direct swipe from Android.
Any notification that comes from apps now pops up at the top of the screen, and Apple’s added it to Stocks and Weather.
It all looks almost exactly like Mobile Notififer, and what do you know? Peter Hajas went to work at Apple.
Notifications also go to the lock screen, and allow you to see what’s going on at a glance.
Wow. Mobile Notifier was basically bought wholesale by Apple, huh? This is a big step up for iOS.
Wow! That’s a bombshell. We expected Lion would be available on DVD, USB stick and on the Mac App Store, but Phil Schiller says that it’s a Mac App Store exclusive… and he says it’ll be the easiest upgrade you’ve ever seen.
This should kill Hackintoshing and piracy of Lion, by the way.
“You need about 4GB in storage. And because it’s part of the Mac App Store it follows the rules… you can use it on all of your authorized devices,” says Schiller.
Price: $29.99, just like Snow Leopard.
And the developer preview? It’s available today.
As for widescale release? July.
The final Lion feature Apple wants to talk about today is the new Mail.app.
• Two or three column view, similar to iOS Mail.
• Smart new search suggestions. “It prompts you, when you select one, it becomes a search token, and you can have more than one,” says Phil Schiller.
• Conversation view, completely compatible with people who don’t have Lion.
It’s nice to finally see Lion’s default Mail.app catch up with the likes of Postbox, don’t you think? Hate the new logo though. Apple’s really embracing brushed steel again with Lion.
While WWDC is currently going on, a leaked Pastebin document is floating around the web. What’s in it? A lot of goodies. iOS 5 betas, iTunes 10.5 betas, and a whole lot more. A paid developer account is needed, but they’ll all be sure to be posted on public file sharing sites by the end of the day. While I’m currently logged in to my paid developer account, I still don’t have access to them, so they’ll most likely be live after the keynote.
Check out everything that Apple will be putting out after the break.
Next up in the Lion demo? AirDrop.
“The easiest way to share files between computers has been the old sneakernet… a flash drive,” says Phil Schiller.
Now there’s AirDrop, though, a peer-to-peer file utlility that allows you to easily send files to Mac on your network, with fully encrypted interface.
Wow. Just look how great that interface is!
Next up, Apple’s showing off its new feature in Lion, Resume.
Now when you launch an app in Lion, it brings you back to where you were when you quit. It remembers palettes, windows, etc, and works system wide.
Working in conjunction with Auto Save, this could be a game changer. OS X Lion will now automatically save your documents in the background without you having to do anything.
If you zoom in on the title bar of your document, the name of your document is now a menu that you can tap on. A menu pops up that lets you Lock, Duplicate, Revert to Last Opened, or Browser All Versions.
Autosave works in conjunction with Versioning in Lion, which means all together, you never have to worry about losing your work, or overwriting it with something inferior. Just browse the versions and you get a Time Machine like interface of all the past changes, which you can even cut and paste between.
Now Phil Schiller wants to talk about the Mac App Store.
“We launched the Mac App Store in January and users have already found it’s the best way to purchase and discover new software apps. It has become the #1 PC software channel for buying software in the last six months, and the developers who have come aboard have found some great success: four times the revenue they had before.”
What’s new in Lion? Well, Mac App Store is built right in, and not such a huge surprise, but in-app purchases will be coming. As well as push notifications, sandboxing, and Delta Updates.